The Shaming of the GOP

Tags

Bergdahl, GOP, hypocrisy, tea party

I mean ya gotta hand it to the GOP and their corp of clowns. I swear the term chutzpah must have been invented just for them.

Given all the back-walking going on within the GOP ranks on this issue of Sgt. Bergdahl, it still remains stunning the degree to which folks like Fox Noise continue to look down their noses at the drooling sycophants that pass as the usual Fox viewer.

Case in point, is one Ollie North, criminal/traitor extraordinaire who was recently on Newsmax to give us the benefit of his wisdom on the negotiated release of Sgt. Bergdahl from the hands of the Taliban.

You remember Ollie. He participated along with candidate Ronald Reagan, in a secret deal with Iran (terrorists) to sell them missiles and then turn that money over to the Contras in Nicaragua (more terrorists). In return Iran was supposed to turn over  hostages, but not until the election was over, so Carter couldn’t get the benefit of it. This was not only negotiating with terrorists, it was downright treason.

Yet, Fox figured Ollie was a good choice to weigh in on the matter of the Bergdahl release. I mean seriously!

From there we move to Johnny McCain who just cannot to this day live with the fact that he is not the President.

Back in February of this year, Johnny suggested that he could probably get behind a trade of Taliban Gitmo detainees in exchange for Sgt. Bergdahl, though he would “have to see the details”. This seems in line with the information that this negotiation has been in the works since 2011, and that the appropriate members of Congress were informed of both the negotiations, AND the subjects of any exchange.

John was enraged when this was pointed out to him. He sputtered, accused journalists of “lying” and then abruptly changed his tune, and suggested that it was a done deal, and we should move on. Then the next day, he was back on the bandwagon, screaming for “his head”.

Joined at the hip, Kelly Ayotte just on Memorial Day was calling on citizens to “remember Sgt. Bergdahl in their thoughts and prayers” and declaring that she was pushing the military to do everything possible to return him to his family. Of course now she’s singing a different tune.

Ayotte, is of course, no different from Lindsey Butchmeup Graham, who get their marching orders from Johnny, came to lately McCain, and both can be forgiven their turnabouts, since it’s all just too confusing to them in the first place. Lindsey of course is facing a primary next week, and so he’s desperately trying to remind everyone in his state that he has a mighty big job in just zipping up his trousers over that massive load of junk he’s carrying.

Their story is not singular as it were. A host of those who were congratulating America on having brought back a prisoner, quickly scrubbed their congratulations from their Twitter feeds when advised that the GOP was tacking once again. At least six Republicans have done so, advised by party leaders apparently that things “had changed”.

This all falls into place when one realizes that the rabble of the Tea People are making their anger heard throughout the faux news blogs that cater to the trailer brigade. Facebook pages, and the usual stories rebound around the likes of WorldNetDaily, Breitbart and Fox Noise, all attesting to the fact that Bergdahl was “probably a traitor”, “probably a deserter”, whose father “looks like a Muslim” and on and on. Impeachment echoes through the halls of crazy land.

None of this has anything to do with the decision of course, but in the usual fear of upsetting the grossly ignorant, GOP politicians run scared. The mill around the Capital, asking each other what to do, after all, elections are at stake, and NOTHING is as important.

The degree to which the GOP jumps when the fringe furrows it’s collective Neanderthal brow, is stunning. Just last week, the NRA after having declared that the crazies in Texas wandering around cheap food establishments with assault-type rifles and camouflage, should just go home, was met with an uproar from these thugs, and beat a hasty retreat, claiming “we made a terrible mistake”.

Such is the state of the GOP that they are drug around by the nose by a band of motley ill-educated morons who have basements full of canned goods, and lockers full of assault weapons, all ready for the coming revolution. However shaming this is to them personally doesn’t excuse the selling out of their soul in exchange for a greasy fingered vote.

The bottom line is quite simple. There are few facts that are known, other than the following.

1. Prisoner exchanges have always been part of a President’s duties, going back to George Washington.
2. Prisoner exchanges are done by most countries, including Israel with Palestine. In fact one of their more famous exchanges involved 1 Israel for over a THOUSAND Palestinians. Both sides call the other side terrorists.
3. This negotiation has been going on since 2011. There seems to be evidence that some Congressional leaders of the appropriate committees were aware of the negotiations, and the general parameters of those discussions.
4. Sgt. Bergdahl has been charged with no crime. And even if he were, that is no reason whatsoever by any military standard not to secure his release.
5. The exchanged Gitmo detainees were Taliban, not Al Qaeda. There is a serious difference.

This smacks, as so much of GOP opposition usually ends up being, as nothing more than, whatever the Black guy does, we hate it. Note that as usual, the GOP prior to this event, demanded the release of Sgt. Bergdahl, but as usual offered NO concrete terms of how that should be done. (See Syria, and the Ukraine for similar demands without specifics). So they demand action, refuse to specify what that action should be, and then when ANY action is taken, it’s the wrong action, and still there is no statement of what right action would look like.

This is a pattern of opposition. This is not governance, it is pure mean-spirited obstinate opposition. It is in truth a pandering to the fringe crazies which now seem to run the GOP. These people are satisfied with nothing other than venomous denial to everything this President presents. Of course they have no alternatives. Do you expect to get alternatives from seven-year olds?

Perhaps someday, normal men and women will pick themselves up from the mud, wash themselves off, and decide to reclaim the GOP as a party worthy of listening to. Not today however, not today.

 

Step Back a Moment

Tags

conservativism, Election 2012, Islamophobia, Military, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, science, War

Hold on there dude, this is not a diatribe against men.

Just making a subtle point in a loud way. (Can you do that?)

We are wont, as people of the moment, to define all events given the world as it is, and as it seems to us reasonable, given our own knowledge and experiences. Which is nothing more than saying, we judge events from the facts which are most immediately at hand.

We don’t take the long view. Unless we are well versed in say, HISTORY, we often think that what we are experiencing is brand new and of first impression. And if we are versed in pseudo-history, we get even more confused.

However, after this many eons of human existence, there is really little that is new. Most is simply recycled problems from times past, cast in new garments.

So when we look about us and think that conservatives are the most idiotic of creatures ever to naturally occur by the arbitrary meeting of egg and sperm, well we are probably really really wrong.

There is a really excellent article at The Chronicle about this whole phenomenon. What is conservatism? What it seeks to protect on the surface is far from what drives it underneath. It is driven by fear that the “natural order” will be forever upturned. And this touches in the end, the most basic and personal of relationships.

It is an article well worth your time.

To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

What this suggests, is that the conservative cannot enjoy the familiar and seek the unknown. Rather the unknown is a threat to the familiar, and must be opposed. Oddly enough, the opposition might well entail a type of radicalism that would be quite familiar to the left. If, the article argues, the OWS movement has real staying power, it might just force the conservatives of the day to that radicalism which does in the end, lead to real creative energy.

¶

Oh goodie! *bounce* *bounce* The LeHaye’s (Tim writes all those Left Behind books that tell who will and will not be going to hell very soon) have decided to endorse the Newtster. And I can just hear God heaving a great sigh of relief. Or was he passing wind?

¶

Obama wishes to consolidate a some government agencies. But our dearly beloved little guy Ricky P, well he wants to just shut ’em all down. Remember when he forgot which three he would abolish? Those being Commerce, Education and Energy? Well now he changed them to Commerce, Energy and Interior. Or he got confused again. Does anyone care? As Juanita would say, bless his heart.

¶

Mittens handlers are crying foul about Ricky’s and Newt’s lambasting their plastic doll over his Bain exploits. “Doin’ the Democrats work for ’em” they squawk. Hey guys, you been doing my work for me for months. What’s new? I can write these posts in well under two hours, and that’s just trying the find the MOST outrageous crap you guys spew.

¶

Walking it back just a bit.

About the video of Marines and the Afghan dead.

The Contrarian reminded me of one salient fact I had not considered.

How do you train a human being to degrade another human being enough to kill them, and still be enough human to honor the dead?

This is not an excuse, nor do I find what was done any less reprehensible. But we ask humans to do inhuman things. There are unintended consequences to that you may be sure. Just look at our suicide and homeless rates among veterans if you have any doubt.

¶

I confess to remaining mostly dumbfounded by why regular old working types who for whatever reason think that tying their lunch pail to the GOP wagon will bring them the good life, are stonehead deaf when it comes to things that really shouldn’t impact their wallets.

I speak of science, and why the average TeaNutz®ian rusted iron anvil for a brain, Bud-guzzling, balogna-shoveling, NASCAR cheering, ass-crack showin’, gut-protruding, trailer-trash parkin’, person also disses climate change, basic economic theory, real history, and virtually anything else that smacks of empirical rationality. Evolution excepted. Evolutionary pushback seems utterly tied to one’s religious theories, the more literal one responds to the written sacred texts, the more adamant one is that evolution is a satanically offered hoax.

Well, those who study these things suggest that the response is largely visceral, and has little to do with logic, but rather is something that is the result of psychological forces that we are not particularly aware of. In other words, we are just wired that way.

That’s not particularly comforting is it?

¶

Well, it’s off to leftovers and of course listening to my beloved talk non-stop about THE game, to be played sometime this weekend.

Sigh. I carry a heavy burden.

Related articles

• John Quiggin: Conservatives and Reactionaries (delong.typepad.com)
• Emotions, Not Thoughts: (brothersjuddblog.com)

Nobody Knows Just How Crazy Some Folks Are

Tags

abortion, Adam West, Africa, contraception, GOP, Jim DeMint, media wackos, MLK, Qaddafi, Rick Santorum, teabaggers, Women's issues

We woke up today to the news that Moammar Qaddafi is reportedly dead, killed most likely by rebel forces. There are reports that he was found in a drainage pipe, and shouted, “don’t shoot” when discovered.

Of course, that was ignored, and it is widely believed that he was executed on the spot.

That seems the way of dealing with unsavory dictators. We have always done so historically, although I guess at times we have resorted to mock trials before the rope or firing squad was used.

It seems we make no progress. That Qaddafi was the author of much horror in the world is undoubtedly true. One would think however that taking satisfaction that he resided in a small cell for whatever time he has left would have been preferable. No more hair dye, no more fine wines or big screen television. The pound of flesh could have been savored one would think much more enjoyably rather than this quick dispatch.

But that is now how we function as humans. . .yet.

♦

Yes, I know, I changed the blog again. And before you ask, I don’t redecorate my house. I am not addicted to every passing fashion in shoes or clothes.  WordPress has this pesky problem of introducing new themes every time one turns around (literally every week), and well I was never that happy with the last one. I thought the sidebar was unattractive. I rather liked the header, but I have to tell you a secret. If you noticed the date (September 9, 2009) you would realize that the picture was of a teabagger rally in Washington. I never realized it until later, and I just didn’t have the time to find another.

The header up now is of the Return to Sanity rally run by Jon Stewart, et al.

♦

You might well have missed this important notice. It seems that Marines in Afghanistan were formally advised that they should cease and desist farting in the country. It seems it is considered a serious rudeness among Afghans.

I must tell you that the Contrarian is making it very sure that he is not drafted by the Marines. Just in case any are lurking outside our house waiting to scurry him off to a recruiting center. No sir, he is unfit. He farts as often as possible throughout the day and night, just to be sure they are aware.

And you still doubt my application for sainthood?

♦

Did you hear that Pat Buchanan has a new book out? You should no doubt skip it. As one person said yesterday, Pat gets away with some pretty obvious racism in the name of “analysis.”

The idiot claims that somehow we were all much happier in the 50’s when we were united as “one people” with similar goals. Now we have that pesky “African-American” thing and well, all those people from the South (America that is) with their “otherness”.

Buchanan basically bemoans the demise of whiteness in America. Read about it at Angry Black Lady Chronicles.

♦

I watched a bit of the festivities at the King Memorial this past weekend. I distinctly recall his children speaking. They rightly pointed out that their father would have supported the OWS movement. After all, he was assassinated while supporting union sanitation workers. Dr. King certainly understood the build in inequality of wealth distribution in this country. It is wildly worse now than it was in his day.

Yet, Adam West, (R-FL) all-around idiot, says nay. He claims that King would never have supported such detris as the OWS crowd. No, King was “divinely inspired” and wouldn’t be a part of such things.

Professor Chauncey de Vega weighs in on the continuing attempts by the crazy right to turn Dr. King into their pet hero.

♦

I like to report on Ricky (Don’t Google me!) Santorum. He’s amusing as a little circus monkey. He has not a chance of securing the nomination, and no doubt he knows that, but he is bored, and he likes the free food offered along the campaign trail.

So Ricky, ever in the hopes of finding somebody to listen, decided to appeal to the tiniest tiniest segment of the Catholic church. Contraception! Ricky will have none of THAT in his administration (the one in his head, where he is grand pupah president). Because THAT leads to, you know, THAT, and we can’t have any of THAT now can we?

And unicorns will graze in meadows, and butterflies will bring you faery dust at bed time.

♦

Some folks need a time out, a brain roto-rootering, and a sedative. One of them is Jim DeMint. He’s an idiot.  I think there is a certified letter to that effect.

He takes the collective IQ of South Carolina down a whole 17 points all by himself.

This super TeaNutz® has introduced an amendment to an utterly unrelated bill, that would make it illegal for a woman to have a video conference with her doctor if the subject was abortion.

I swear he did that.

I swear he needs to be committed for his own sake.

I swear a lot when Jim DeMint’s name comes up.

♦

What’s on the stove? Ribs, mac and cheese (a new recipe I’m trying out, so stay tuned), and broccoli slaw.

Related articles

• Qaddafi Dead as Troops Seize Stronghold, Officials Say – New York Times (news.google.com)
• Pat Buchanan Isn’t Racist, but… (slog.thestranger.com)
• Pat Buchanan: America is Disintegrating Because White America is an Endangered Species (crooksandliars.com)
• Pat Buchanan’s Latest Screed Full Of Racism, Not Worth Even $1.99 (dekerivers.wordpress.com)
• Marines Not Allowed To Fart In Afghanistan! (perezhilton.com)
• Marines Not Allowed To Fart In Afghanistan! (lukewilliamss.wordpress.com)

Ho, Ho, Ho, Witchy Poo is Back!

Tags

Advent, bible, birthers, Christine O'Donnell, Christmas, Frankincense, fundamentalists, Genesis, GOP, Jesus, Michael Steele

She learned at the knee of the Wasilla Wombat. She learned that when the electorate rejects ya, get up, dust yourself off, and keep on yappin’. You will surely find enough poor souls to pay your way.

So Christine O’Donnell, finding the cupboard most bare, formed a PAC and, now her bills taken care of, she can utter profound (in her ditzy mind) quips, and otherwise try to interject herself into adult conversations.

Not content to get two of the top ten quotes of the year, she’s after more. She’s in a friendly race with sista Sarah to be both the most obnoxious, won’t go away buffoon and the biggest butcher of the English language to date.

If enough isn’t being said about the tax bill being decided Ms. Chatty Christie has weighed in. Of course she’s all for the Bush tax cuts being extended and she hates all the stuff for those in economic free fall. According to the non-witchy one, tragedies come in threes–Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards death, and now these confounded extensions of unemployment benefits. She then tried to explain what THAT meant, and of course failed. Halloween can’t return fast enough.

***

You and I are much alike. Therefore, I feel confident that you too have spent countless hours? maybe even days, wondering what the hell frankincense  is or was. Given the season, well, I went a lookin’ for an answer for us both.

I tried Senator Franken, but he demurred, pointing out that there is an “e” after the K in his name, not an “i” as in frankincense. So I figured Slate would have the answer, and they did. Read all about it here, and surprise friends and family with your new-found sparkling intellect.

***

I think a lot like Keith Olbermann I guess. At least two of his items from last night’s show were links on my blog. We, meaning me and he and his researchers must be reading some of the same bloggers online. That’s comforting to me. And of course, you can know that you’re getting the “best” when you come here. *snicker* and “toot”.

***

It appears that Michael, I’m da black man in the Repiglians world, Steele, has decided to give it another go round. Shocking all the Repoopers with the news he was not gonna go “quietly into the night” he threw his hat in the ring to be the paper tiger in the GOP once again.

Now this pissed off tons of the GOP regulars, since they thought that two years was enough to prove they aren’t the bigots everybody says they are. They were tired of Mr. Steele’s general stupidity, hoof and mouth disease, and all around big spender attitude.

Ain’t it just fun watching the GOP fracture along so many different lines?

***

Let those with brains, think. We, with regularity, point out that fundigelicals are guilty mostly of reading biblical texts in a manner that supports their own needs and general beliefs about the world. They accept as literal those things that seem right to them anyway, and reject/ignore/explain away other quite direct statements when they cut against their needs and beliefs.

A provocative post at Biologos explains how early Jewish theologians were pained to clothe Adam and Eve, to protect their ideas of cultural “rightness” in their day. Indeed, we are all subject to that influence. Read, Genesis, Creation and Ancient Interpreters: Adam and Eve’s Nakedness.

***

If you just want to read something sweet and uplifting and well, Christmasy, then read Five String Guitar’s post about he and his wife’s latest Christmas shopping trip. It will warm your heart! Try it!

***

Hold onto your shorts folks. I have a major announcement to make! I do not DO NOT DO NOT have an opinion on the Julian Assange/Wikileaks affair. Nope, I surely don’t. Stand by: I may have one tomorrow. But so far, I don’t.

***

Take a look at this face, and if you ever see it, you will be looking into the face of a modern medical miracle. This man can actually walk and speak.

This buffoon, a Lt. Col. in the Army just pled guilty at his court-martial and faces eighteen months in prison, all because he refused to go to Afghanistan because the President is not a citizen and thus cannot legally give such an order.

What is worse, he was not ordered to Afghanistan but VOLUNTEERED, just to force this case. It is simply stunningly amazing that anyone can be this stupid, and be a surgeon.

Do not, repeat, do not, allow this man near you with a scalpel. No doubt his medical licence is also at risk due to his felony conviction.

***

The Contrarian is installing plastic sheeting over the bay windows in the living room. Plenty of naughty words are emanating from there. I am not going out there to see. The cats have all gone into hiding. Brandy wouldn’t come up the steps again, the rain/slush/snow had her carpet all frozen up and slick. So now there are towels down, until it warms enough to de-ice. This is all no big deal, except when it’s 4 below zero and 2:30 am and you are out there begging and pleading with her to “try.”

***

What’s on the stove today?  Tostados! Hurrah.

Related Articles

• Christine O’Donnell: unemployment benefits deal a ‘tragedy’…like Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth Edwards (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Christine O’Donnell: Pearl Harbor, Unemployment Benefits Extension Both ‘Tragedies’ (huffingtonpost.com)

War, Good God, What is it Good For?

Tags

Afghanistan, Iraq, Veterans, Vietnam, War

It may come as a shock to you to know that I am a pacifist. I hold no truck with war. None. I find it an ugly waste of life.

I am not a patriotic person by nature. I don’t understand artificial national lines of demarcation. I figure you farm where food grows, and you manufacture where factories make sense. Anything less makes no logical sense.

War never ends war, never has, and never will. Within every war are the seeds of the next one, and the next, and on and on.

It has been said that these interminable wars we now are engaged in, are real only to the actual soldiers and their families. The rest of us remain largely untouched. That is probably true. But it probably always has been like that. We fail always to see the deeper and more subtle costs that effect us all.

I read many years ago Normal Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.  He won the Pulitzer for it, and well he should. I never felt the same way about war after that. I learned there is no glory, no adventure, no honorable patriotic pride. There is only blood, sweat, insects, rot, disease, discomfort, pain, mental distress and death. Nothing heroic or noble, just putting one foot interminably in front of the other, marching into the jaws of death.

I think it speaks volumes that most veterans don’t talk about their war. It is too horrific, too vile, too inhuman. The fear they have is, I suspect, the revulsion they might find. My father never spoke of WWII, except to point a time or two, as he gazed at his company yearbook, “This guy got shot in the gut right next to me. He died.” On some beach, somewhere in Italy. Somewhere in some far off land.

I’ve been reading Tim O’Brien’s extraordinary book, The Things They Carried. I found it on a great books list, and thought my husband might need to read it. He cannot stop reading it, re-reading passages again and again. My husband wasn’t a grunt, he flew on helicopters, yet O’Brien’s poignant vignettes of life in the bush of Vietnam ring so true that he finds common ground aplenty.

I’ve read about half, and there are times I want to set it down and not continue. So raw and so frightening are the feelings. Time and again, I cannot relate to the behavior of young men living in such hell. I try, but I fail to understand. I would guess they would act one way, and they don’t. My husband understands, but I do not.

The book is so aptly titled. For he speaks of what they carried common to them all, water canteens, rations, M-16’s, ammo. But he then goes on to speak of the more personal things, the letters, the rabbit’s foot, the pair of pantyhose of a girlfriend, a deck of cards, a bible. And then deeper still, the fears, hopes, dreams, terrors that each carried in varying degrees.

One line I shall never forget.

“They died so as not to die of embarrassment.”

Vietnam was a war of the draft. Boys were called up. Damn few chose to go. Most did about everything they could to avoid it. College was a safe place to be, but grad school was not. The state army reserves was excellent, but the waiting lists were huge. Conscientious objector status was good, but you really had to show a history of such beliefs before being drafted. Boys sometimes pretended insanity, or homosexuality to escape. And then there was Canada.

O’Brien almost ran. He drove to the border, he fought his internal battle for a couple of weeks. In the end, he says, he was not courageous, he was a coward, he went back home, to report for boot camp.

You see, it was the embarrassment. Better to die in a war you did not believe in, wanted no part of, than to face the embarrassment of family, friends, town. Embarrassment that one couldn’t stand up and do the manly thing.

Ironic, that the draft captures the young. The eighteen through twenty-something. Exactly before young men have found themselves, their self-ness. Still so locked into peer pressure, and wanting to life up to expectations of what others desire them to be. It’s an ingenious system that works, most go like lambs to the slaughter because they cannot bear to be different. Thought cowardly.

So they go. And they die. Or they are grievously wounded. Or they see and participate in horrors the likes of which we who have not drunk from this cup, cannot imagine. We would recoil, we would move away. We would relegate such as these to leper colonies, these no longer quite humans.

So they don’t mostly speak. They live among us, with their terrible memories. With guilts and tears unshed, with fears of cowardly acts, of monstrous visions. Of death, of more blood than any animal slaughter house would conceive.

Of the smells, awful rotting human flesh, the charred remains of villages, of once sweet smells now gone rancid because of associations. The sounds, that make fireworks at home on humid July nights intolerable. The same for backfiring cars. The sounds of helicopters rotate through the mind and recall the sinking feeling as one is propelled downward into a free fall crash.

These are lifetime memories. Never to be escaped. And they forever color and mutilate lives, shrinking the scope of opportunity. Forever icing over the heart. Always the need to protect the raw pain that is ever present, though often softened by drugs and alcohol or any other addictive and repetitive behavior that numbs the senses.

And since we, the unchurched in such affairs, don’t understand, we all too readily are willing to defer to the crazy minds who still think that war is an answer. And so we don’t rise up in anger and indignation and demand that this hell stop. We tell ourselves it is unfortunate, but necessary.

And it is not necessary. It is simply humanity stuck in a rut of pain giving and receiving, back and forth like some crazy swing set. And I weep for all, for all who are ground up in this endless meat grinder.

**

The lyrics to Edwin Starr’s War, can be found here.

For a poem about life at Landing Zone Betty in Vietnam, read Gary Jacobson.

Peace

What’s Up? 06/22/10

Tags

blogging, cake, dessert, History, hoarding, Marcus Aurelius, McChrystal, Military, Obama, online posting, paleontology, philosophy, Photography, psychology, racism, Recipes, slavery, teabaggers

If ya read upside down like Chimpy here, then you better go elsewhere. But I know you read just fine, so continue we will to  the bestest stuff I have found today in my wanderings through the Intertubes of information.

We have managed to have most of two days of no rain, and though threatening earlier, it’s sunning now. Not sure how long that will last.

Things are alleged to be getting all fired up again as evening comes on, when I shall be heading home from a meeting at church.

So without further ado, scan the following for anything that strikes your fancy. Where you fancy might be, I have no idea, and don’t mean to say anything untoward or sexually provocative or anything. As Vodka says, children read this blog. Keep that in mind. I believe in dressing appropriately at the computer. No skivvies if you are so enrobed. Get dressed before proceeding.

We start with a nice recipe for dessert, Mystery Mocha from Pioneer Woman. I’ve cut through all the pictures and gone straight to the recipe. It’s kinda like a lava cake, chocolaty and coffeey.

There is an interesting review of a biography of Marcus Aurelius at In Character. That might interest one person I know, but I thought it posed an interesting dilemma today. We all want so many answers to life’s questions, but we seldom seek the answers in philosophy, certainly not ancient Stoicism at least. We are more prone to the quick fix of self-help books. Perhaps a post might grow from this. . .who knows.

The Boston Globe has a really good article on the mind of the anonymous commenter online. The hard core make up about 1% of all online users.  Should people be required to use their names? What is happening as a result of the anonymity generally allowed? Are comments even a good thing at all? Read on and see.

In case you didn’t know, Blisterina does some outstanding photography, usually in black and white which I just love. Please visit.

Religious Dispatches has a good piece on the Tea Party and how it attempts to re-write history. Now we are to understand that racism really played no part in slavery. No, it was a conspiracy is all. Do read on. Providing “proof” that racists don’t have to feel guilty about their racism. Takes the cake doesn’t it?

It appears we may have been walking longer than we thought. Kin of Lucy the most famous of our ancestors, is older than she apparently. Lucy’s ancestor is called “big man” because he was between 5 and 5’6″  compared to Lucy who was a mere 3’6″ tall. As you would expect, not all agree, and that’s the fun of science isn’t it?

We hear about it more and more. It seems to be the new “in” thing to suffer from. I’m talking about hoarding. I think there is even a TV show that features interventions. Anyway, I don’t get people like this, but I find it all quite fascinating as well. There is a book out about it, and it is featured  at Huff Po. In our consumer obsessed lives, I can only guess it is on the rise.  It’s a sad and complex disease. The book looks interesting for sure.

Will or will not President Obama fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal? Most think he will, but David Quigg has a very different take, and one that is worth thinking about. Obama is smarter than the average President  after all.

And dat oughta keep you outa trouble today.

Why Am I The Only One Who Knows What to Do?

Tags

Afghanistan, celebrities, heroes, life in the meadow, Obama, The Contrarian, Tiger Woods, War

Well, I listened to the President’s speech the other night. It was not what I wanted to hear. I’m a product of Vietnam and a seemingly never ending Middle Eastern crisis. I don’t believe in happy endings when it comes to war torn planet earth.

I support the President’s decision however. No, it’s not the knee jerk, anything goes since he’s one of ours. I continue to disagree with Mr. Obama on a number of issues. I want Gitmo closed and now. I’m tired of the delays.

I want the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ended in the military. I wanted that done like January 21, 2009. I wanted a more supportive stance on gay rights in general.

I am sad that Mr. Obama supports the death penalty, and I wish he didn’t. I want this barbaric practice stopped everywhere.

I want universal health care for everyone, period. Perhaps he agrees with me on this, but he’s clearly ready for more compromise than I am.

The point is, is that I can disagree, while overall still supporting Obama because he is heads and shoulders above any alternative. My proclivity to despise my opponent (Bush and McCain for instance) is known. The Contrarian suggests that if GWB discovered a cure for cancer I would refuse it. That might be true. But it doesn’t stop me from objectively concluding that my choice is not without error in his political decisions some times.

President Obama got stuck with a mess not of his creation. That divine honor goes to Bush/Cheney/Rummy/Karl/ and the rest of the crew of incompetents. Mr. Obama is one of the brightest humans around and surrounds himself with top notch advisers. I have spoke my opposition, but I will wish this enterprise well and deeply hope that he knows a good deal more than me about the options and likely results.

Speaking of Tiger, (well, I segue my way), I’ve said that I don’t care about his personal business and it’s none of mine in the end. Yet the question remains to me, exactly when did we determine that our heroes were somehow above the rest of us in virtue? We seem to have come to that conclusion, but I want to know when.

If we look back to the time of Greece and Rome, there is no question that the ancients of that time regarded their gods and heroes as having “feet of clay.” Their limitations and their foibles were well known and alluded to in literature of the time.

Somewhere all the line, we changed and we imbued our “heroes” whether they be silver screen members or sports stars, with some perfection once reserved only to newborns. Somehow we have placed all our failure to live up to our own expectations on the backs of strangers and tried to live the virtuous life through them I guess.

Tiger Woods appears to be an expert at this. He has courted the celebrity spotlight, becoming probably the highest paid endorser of products, all the while, until now, keeping his private life just that, private. But alas, once the genie is out of the jar, well, the dam burst and the torrent of rumor and innuendo seems endless now. And sadly, it’s all so very predictable.

Predictable to us mere mortals who seem to know instinctively that sooner or later media mega stars are going to get caught if there is anything to be caught about. Too many eyes peering at you Tiger, from the housekeeper in the posh hotel to the guy pumping gas at the local station. They are all watching, and once the talk begins, they add their voices to what becomes a crescendo of accusation.

I guess I wonder when we will learn to pick better role models or not expect what cannot be lived by them. It seems mostly a function of ours and their immaturity.

Speaking of the Contrarian, he’s in rare form these days. I suspect you may not have realized it, but the Contrarian specializes in commercial examination. He has done a considerable study and has pondered the evidence with care. He concludes that the Victoria’s Secret commercials remain the standard by which all other commercials should be judged. They somehow have this amazing ability to never get old, never bore, never objectify, never offend.

I leave that to others to decide. I’m his wife after all, and I tend to think he is always right. Well, at least unless I’m more right. Then he’s wrong. But publicly, we keep a strong unassailable front. 

He figures that all his ogling research into scantily clad women certainly puts him him high on the list for his next interest: namely that he has heard that there is a profession known as “sexual anthropology.”

He would like to inquire into becoming one. He offers that he’s amenable to a work study program. I said I would check out the opportunities for him, via the computer. Yeah, and pigs fly and it’s don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.

Oh, just in case anyone is asking, his strength is returning. After a bout with wild eyebrow hair, he’s recovering nicely. Let me just explain briefly.

“I have these hairs from my eyebrow and they are hanging within view, and I need them cut.”

“Go get the spoon dear.”

Yes, yes, the masculine bohemoth I am married to, needs to cover his eye with a spoon as I approach with manicure scissors to clip a couple of stray hairs. With a dose of OCD that would curl the nose of even Howie Mandel, the Contrarian man’s up to the occasion when he must expose his jugular eyebrow, to the ever aging and shaking hands of his wife, the “Butcher of Troy.”

Within moments as I snip away, he is screaming like a girl, “I heard that, I HEARD that, you hit the spoon with the scissors! Be CAREFUL!” I nod, and shake my head, roll my eyes, and comfort him like a child getting his first cavity filled, “There there now, relax, we’re almost done.” Welcome to my world.

***

No post tomorrow since we are shopping. None yesterday since I was in town on Church stuff all day and evening.